A nearly blind pensioner was jailed today for making a hoax bomb call.

The 65-year-old, who is blind in one eye and who is losing the sight of his second eye, was jailed for eleven months at the Magistrate's Court in Derry after admitting making the call to the emergency services stating that there was a bomb inside the court building.

James Harkin from Damien House, a hostel in the city for people with alcohol addiction problems, was caught after police found his DNA on the mouthpiece and earpiece of the public phone he used to made the hoax bomb call.

A prosecution solicitor told Deputy District Judge Paul Conway that Harkin, who had 135 previous criminal convictions, two of them for making hoax bomb calls just two weeks before this offence, made a 999 call to the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service at 8pm on October 5, 2013. He told the operator who answered the emergency call that there was a bomb inside the Bishop Street courthouse.

The call was traced to a public phone box in Guildhall Square and when CSI officers took swabs from the phone piece, they matched Harkin’s DNA. When he was arrested Harkin he told the police that he was drunk at the time and had also forgotten to take his anti-psychotic medication.

A defence barrister told the court that at the time Harkin was a chronic alcoholic but he had not taken alcohol for the last six months.

The barrister added: “He regularly attends AA meetings and the officer in charge of his hostel accommodation has described him as a model resident. At the time of this offence he was under a suspended sentence for committing two similar offences two weeks earlier. Since this offence he has spent several periods in prison.”

The Deputy District Judge said Harkin’s behaviour “harked back to the bad old days”. He said by making the hoax call Harkin had caused police officers to be taken off other important duties and to be re-deployed to the scene of the alert.

He added: “When the police officers arrived at the scene they placed their lives at risk because they did not know if it was a viable alert or a hoax alert.

"The very definition of terrorism is to inflict fear on society.

"You may not be affiliated to a terrorist organisation, you may not hold political views, but you did instil fear in the community by your actions.

"You have now done this on three separate occasions.

"This goes way beyond your personal problems.

“I have great sympathy for the way your life has played out.

"Much of it is not your fault.

"You have had difficulties.

"A lot of people would have suffered and struggled with the problems you have, however that does not eliminate you from your criminal responsibility.”

The Deputy District Judge then imposed the maximum Magistrate’s Court sentence of six months on Harkin and also put into effect consecutively a five months suspended sentence imposed for his similar previous offending.

He said: “There must be a deterrent for you and for other people. Because of the recent history in Northern Ireland the police have to treat all bomb threats as viable thereby causing inconvenience and road closures.